It's quite good to think about improvements. Many points are good. If people have some time, they can read this thread. It's good to see all of the reactions. There will always be controversial points and things where people do not agree with eachother. But it's nice that this thread is going full of discussion, but mostly in a fair way :)

Edited 3/31/2023 20:53:35

Executive Summary #8:

Everything started with the question: "How can we make Warzone more popular". The short answer is this 6-step guide below;

1) Make the game more "new-player friendly"

1.1) Terminate Auto-Changing Settings

Instead of changing player settings automatically, ask players if they wanna change (so many new players quit because they thought Warzone App got broken due to auto-changing start-up screen + so many new players quit because they got overwhelmed by never ending games due to auto-enabling auto-invite)

1.2) Better Tutorials

Develop detailed tutorials for each official template + For commerce, commanders etc.

1.3) Improve the Level-Up System

Focus on participation, not wins (new players shouldn't be try-hards) + Make each level-up more rewarding (Coins, articafts, colorful text etc.) + Make all settings accessible to all players (at least for single-player custom games)

1.4) Separate Win-Rate & Ratings System

WR only effected by: Tourneys, Open Games etc. | Ratings only effected by: QM, Ladders etc. + WR should only be effected by last 100 games (like booting rates)

1.5) Player-friendly GUI

More emphasis on QM, Less emphasis on Open Games (Open Games are confusing for new players)

1.6) Better, Standardized Official Templates

Change: SEAD (on CW), 4FFA (on QM), S2V2 (on WZI Arena) | Add: Diplo templates (on MD QM), AIs vs Players template (on MD QM), Simple, balanced templates (on CW) etc.

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2) Update some old ineffective mechanics

2.1) Improve Matchmaking Systems

Every player should face people from their skill level

2.2) Better Single-player

Shorter levels + Rewards for finishing each level (especially with gold star) + Better levels which are similar to official template settings + Superior AI (with multiple settings like easy & hard) etc.

2.3) Improved "Accidental Commit" System

i.e. If most of your armies didn't moved, double check the commit button

2.4) Free Clan Member Capacity

Uncapped clans should be the norm (to balance CW, only first 30 participants of each clan will be able to participate in that season)

2.5) Rebranding/Renaming

Go back to WarLight if able to, it will be important on marketing campaign step

2.6) Wheel Spin Cooldown Reduction

Its currently every 16 hr, let's make it 8 hr (To reduce the coin gap with players from top clans + To encourage players to play more frequently + To increase Fizzer's advertisement revenue)

2.7) Better Warzone Idle

Players can choose which arena (QM template) settings they'll play with (2v2 arenas are broken) + mortars should worth the cost + make Idle actually idle (soften/remove the "finish level in X days to earn Y" conditions)

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3) Utilize the community to increase visibility of the game (Youtube, Twitch etc.)

3.1) Find a Voice & Image of Warzone

Everyone will subscribe to him and help him become popular to increase the visibility of this game

3.2) Warzone Community Newsletter

All trends, dramas, game changes will be gathered & summarized in a single place to make community more informed and engaging

3.3) More Accessible Information

All community accumulated knowledge about WZIdle, Official Templates etc. should be gathered in a single place like Wiki/Forum/Drive etc. + Community should work to protect and improve this accumulated knowledge

3.4) Special Clans To Help New Players

When a new player starts playing the game, they can join clan as a part of tutorial, through "Join a clan" page (they can leave the clan whenever they want, its just to show how to join a clan). They can join these new clans dedicated to help new players which will help them understand the game quickly while keeping them engaged with the community

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4) Fizzer needs to start an aggressive marketing campaign

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5) Fizzer needs to recruit a small developer team to keep the game trendy

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6) Maintain the cycle "More players > More revenue > More advertisement" for infinity

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Other Suggestions

a) When creating a game, if specifically a 1v1 QM template is used, there can be a an option to search players from QM (with ranking similar to person creates the game) as well. So that players can find another player faster
- Didn't included with the rest because this was too small and convoluted

b) Advanced filtering options for Open Games (you can look for games with specific settings etc.)
- Didn't included with the rest because Open Games already have just a few games, this filtering will make the options feel even less

Edited 4/1/2023 10:07:45

You're thinking the wrong way about Idle. You also do not play it much (if you still play it at all). This thread is about improving Warzone, not making it worse than it is now. Being more active is optional, but is of course faster than doing not much in Idle. The name Idle could be improved, it's actually half Idle and that will always be the case. Because there is no fun at all if you cannot have influence in it. There are multiple strategies and you just need to be active from time to time to make progress. The level rewards for being faster is what makes Idle better when playing a level for the second time after the ascension in the first playthrough. Ascension is basically playing all levels for the first time and then proceed that all the levels are locked again, but you hold all the advancements, artifacts and extra rewards. The case that you do not like that does not mean Idle should be changed more in doing less in Idle.

You're picking the points you find useful and your own opinion in your summary and present it like it's something everybody accepts all the points. But that's not the case. About the name change (going back to Warlight) was said that it is not gonna happen. Although it is a nice idea, it also needs to be realistic. About automatically joining a clan is said that is should not be mandatory to join a clan by multiple players. Letting players see how to join a clan is ok.

5) Fizzer needs to recruit a small developer team to keep the game trendy

I think you missed my earlier point about mods. Fizzer doesn’t need to pay for developers. All that’s needed is lots of mods that people want. Currently basically all mods are member-only (for performance reasons). This way Fizzer can add his on features he want and the most used mods may then eventually be integrated into the actual game

I think @veravari should include the arguments against it as well, instead of just the points.

Yes, that's right Pi. About the clans multiple people have said that it could be better if all clans are the same size. So all of then capped (at 40 or for example 100-200) or all of them uncapped.

I agree different clan sizes are not fair, but I really doubt it's a major problem here

@vena

You're picking the points you find useful and your own opinion in your summary

- When suggestions were few, I was adding all suggestions, then people told me there are too much suggestions, so I filtered it. Since I'm the one filtered, I literally "picked points I found useful". If you have a better alternative, let me know

name change was said that it is not gonna happen

- That's for Fizzer to decide, not you. Name is harming the game financially. Name's objective is to have a sound/word, that differentiates that thing from others, because of CoD's lazy team, game's name is confusing and needs to be changed. Hence, its significant enough to be on the summary.

About the clans multiple people have said that it could be better if all clans are the same size

- We already talked about it infront of you yesterday on global chat. Its already done, did you really forget all about it within 12 hours?

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@DanWL

Fizzer doesn’t need to pay for developers

- He does, modifications only allows you to make tweaks on the game settings, it doesn't change Warzone itself. Even if Warzone was completely open source, he still need to pay if he wants a dedicated team which'll keep the game trendy.

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@3.1415926535

veravari should include the arguments against it as well

- That's not how summaries work pi, but if you're interested about arguments, write them (instead of expecting it from me)

@vera you need to chill.

You just did. Just briefly mention a point or two against it. Full stop.

1.3) Improve the Level-Up System
Focus on participation, not wins (new players shouldn't be try-hards) + Make each level-up more rewarding (Coins, articafts, colorful text etc.) + Make all settings accessible to all players (at least for single-player custom games)

Why should players be rewarded for losing? I can understand rewarding top 3 players/teams in tournaments and other competitions but not in regular games. Rewarding general participation I disagree with unless the player wins.

1.4) Separate Win-Rate & Ratings System
WR only effected by: Tourneys, Open Games etc. | Ratings only effected by: QM, Ladders etc. + WR should only be effected by last 100 games (like booting rates)

Why should open games affect win rate but not QM? If the goal is to make the win rate actually reflect a player’s skill, only ladders and large CLOTs (like Clan League and the Multi-Template Ladder) should affect the win rate.

1.6) Better, Standardized Official Templates
Change: SEAD (on CW), 4FFA (on QM), S2V2 (on WZI Arena) | Add: Diplo templates (on MD QM), AIs vs Players template (on MD QM), Simple, balanced templates (on CW) etc.

I’m not convinced games with lots of players will work on QM. It’ll take a while for them to fill.
Diplomacy games without using a diplomacy mod won’t enforce diplomacy rules.
There needs to be template variety, a mix of simple (for beginners) and complex settings (for more experienced players).

Fizzer doesn’t need to pay for developers

He does, modifications only allows you to make tweaks on the game settings, it doesn't change Warzone itself. Even if Warzone was completely open source, he still need to pay if he wants a dedicated team which'll keep the game trendy.

The game has been around for over 13 years as him as the only person running the site, why does he need to hire developers now? This is his full-time job.

The reason for having a (small) team around Fizzer is simple. What if something bad happens with Fizzer and he is not able to work for this site for let's say 4 months? Let's not hope so by the way). It could be a weakness to be dependent on 1 person.

Fizzer has some players whom he lets help in some things, like Beren. But most can't do anything regardless of skills and ideas because he doesn't share the code, if I understood correctly.

just write the summary in a google doc, where you and maybe some other people (not everyone) can contribute, then post the link here on every page if you want

@DanWL

Why should players be rewarded for losing?

- Because we are talking about experience points and you don't only get experience through winning. You also get experience through playing.

Why should open games affect win rate but not QM?

- To make WR more reliable (playing against people from your skill level will always put your win rate closer to 50%, instead of increasing as you get better).

I’m not convinced games with lots of players will work on QM. It’ll take a while for them to fill.

- Just click on MD, enable auto invite for diplo template and boom, you'll get diplo QMs without even waiting.

Diplomacy games without using a diplomacy mod won’t enforce diplomacy rules.

- If Diplo template has the mod, the game will enforce diplomacy rules

There needs to be template variety, a mix of simple (for beginners) and complex settings (for more experienced players).

- Sure, nobody said anything about having only 1 diplo template

why does he need to hire developers now?

- If you read the suggestion carefully, you'll notice that its written after the aggressive marketing campaign. Hence its for the time when there are more players than Fizzer can handle alone. Plus, its less risky to have multiple developers

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@waffle 2.0

just write the summary in a google doc

- I don't wanna spend the time and effort for it

first thing i read was "add diplos to QM" and yea im good thank you!

Win rate never reveals skill, only rating does (if you disagree then there is literally no point trying convince you). QM rating is activity based.

Good point DanWL

Let's say the correlation of winrate to skill is very low compared to alternative metrics

WR is not meaningful b/c it lacks information about the types of games and opponents played. Even WR for a given specific template, while a bit more meaningful, still doesn't tell you if they cherry picked 5000 weak players or played opponents near their strength.

Rating provides information regarding those opponents, but still isn't perfect b/c you could theoretically still cherry pick weak opponents and just take longer to get a high rating, rising by only 1 or 2 each game, and each loss (vs weaker players) costing you 10-20, so your WR would have to be enormous to achieve this, but if you're significantly better than the player's your facing, it's possible albeit difficult b/c sooner or later even weaker players will win a few games, and these hits to the rating will make it unsustainable. QM leaderboards are an example of this. You don't control who your opponents are, it's whoever is queued up at the time, and if >1 player is queued, you'll get the one closest to your rating, but typically it's just whoever is queued, so you still don't get great matches so far as variation in opponent Rating goes, and it becomes a happenstance of if you are a leaderboard leader and you go up against a weaker player (this is the case most of the time b/c you are a leader), a loss hurts while a win is a small increase. So the WR required to gain further becomes unsustainable quite quickly. If you happen to get matched with another leader in the ballpark of your Rating, then a reasonable WR adjustment results where amount lost for loss and amount gained for win is similar.

WR alone is only ever meaningful in a direct H2H measurement on either 1 single template or a limited set of related templates (related by whatever skill you're trying to compare 2 players on, could be solo 1v1 skill on S1v1 only, maybe any direct non-lotto 1v1 template, maybe their ability to contribute to a team in 2v2's, their ability to win FFAs, etc, but that manifests itself into the filter used to select the templates) and with reference to the sample size.

So my H2H with Alex for example for any 1v1 game: 0% WR, CW SE1W, sample size = 1 game; so this isn't terribly useful, sample size too small to be meaningful.

But H2H with Cicero on 1v1's: 27%, sample size = 26 games; so more accurate, gives an indication

But what sample size is enough? I would say at least 10 to start getting an indication. 25+ better, obviously 100+ would give a full story. But most players don't play against each other that often.

This is where Rating comes is, it allows for the wins/losses relative to the strengths of the opponents to be factored in, so even when you don't have direct H2H stats, you can still make educated estimations based on results of games of the relative strengths of players, including those that have 0 H2H games.

I don’t know why so many on this thread are so eager to reinvent the wheel. Literally thousands of games use some version of Elo/Glicko rating systems and there are hundreds of academic papers written about these systems vis a vis alternatives.

The Bayesian Elo system used on the ladder is hot garbage. Whatever the hell QM does is worse.

A conventional Elo system with a non-zero starting point and a high k-factor for the first ~20 games is the correct option. It’s really that simple.

We don’t need custom activity/experience/prestige nonsense - these systems just encourage smurfing. We need to trust the experts who have studied these concepts from a theoretical and a practical perspective for years rather than pretending we know better than they do.